Drip vs Mailgun
Side-by-side plans, pricing, and feature gates for Drip and Mailgun, verified . Drip is primarily email marketing; Mailgun is primarily transactional email.
Plans side by side
Every published plan from each vendor, with the headline monthly anchor price. Some prices scale with subscriber count or seats; full detail lives on each tool's page.
Drip
- Standard
Most popular: $39/mo at 2.5k contacts
$39/mo
Mailgun
- Free
Hobby tier capped at 100 emails per day
Free - Basic
Entry paid tier with 10,000 emails/month included
$15/mo - Foundation
50,000 emails/month with template builder and full inbound routing
$35/mo - Scale
100,000 emails/month with SAML SSO, dedicated IP, and live support
$90/mo - Enterprise
Custom contracting for high-volume senders
Custom
Limits at the entry paid tier
Compares Standard (Drip) against Basic (Mailgun). Both are the lowest-priced non-free, non-custom plan on each side.
| Limit | Drip | Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | 2,500 contacts (entry tier; scales) | · |
| Emails / month | · | 10,000 |
| Workflows | 50 | · |
When Drip wins
- E-commerce stores on Shopify, BigCommerce, or WooCommerce running flows on customer behavior
- Small to mid stores graduating from Mailchimp's e-commerce features
Where Drip is the wrong fit
- B2B marketers (use ActiveCampaign or Customer.io)
- Creators running newsletters (use Kit or beehiiv)
- Buyers who need to know full pricing before signup
When Mailgun wins
- Developers integrating receipts, notifications, and password-reset emails
- Teams already on a marketing ESP that need a separate transactional channel
- High-volume B2B applications with strict deliverability requirements
Where Mailgun is the wrong fit
- Marketing teams seeking campaign tooling (use Mailchimp or Kit)
- Creators sending newsletters (use Kit or beehiiv)
- Free-tier hobbyists with low total volume but spiky daily-cap-bumping use cases
Common questions
- Is Drip cheaper than Mailgun?
- At the entry tier, Mailgun starts at Free versus Drip at $39/mo. Mailgun is cheaper at the entry. Pricing scales differently above that, so check the full plan grid.
- Does Drip or Mailgun have a free plan?
- Only Mailgun has a permanent free plan. Drip only offers a free trial.
- Are Drip and Mailgun in the same category?
- No. Drip is primarily a email marketing tool; Mailgun is primarily a transactional email tool. They overlap on use case but sit in different primary categories, so the comparison is between adjacent tools rather than direct competitors.
- Which has more plans, Drip or Mailgun?
- Mailgun ships 5 plans; Drip ships 1. Mailgun's longer ladder gives more granular upgrade steps, which can mean smoother price escalation as your team scales.
- Where can I see alternatives to Drip or Mailgun?
- Each tool has a dedicated alternatives page on TierGauge with ranked options and verified pricing: /alternatives/drip for Drip and /alternatives/mailgun for Mailgun. Alternatives are derived from each tool's editor-flagged competitors plus same-category tools we track.
Drip: https://www.drip.com/pricing · Mailgun: https://www.mailgun.com/pricing/
Last verified . Pricing changes between refreshes; confirm at the vendor before purchasing.